We hear a lot lately about degenerative diseases from cancer to heart disease to stroke and various others. My theory is that there are two processes going on in the body at all times. There is never a state of homeostasis where everything remains the same day after day. The body is always changing. If a person does nothing at all in terms of physical exercise, the body will gradually decay or degenerate to the point where one of the degenerative diseases will manifest itself. But long before that the body is in a state of decline or degeneration. On the other hand the body regenerates itself as a response to exercise. If one runs a mile, for example, after not too long one will be able to run two miles. That shows that the body is regenerating itself, becoming stronger. The cardio-vascular system is becoming stronger. It's not the exercise itself that makes the body stronger. It's the body's response to that exercise - regeneration.
At the same time the body's response to sloth or lazines or inactivity is to degenerate - to become weaker. These two processes are in a constant state of seesawing with one another. The crucial question is which process is taking precedence. Is regeneration outpacing degeneration, in which case the body is in a state of inclining health, or is degeneration outpacing regeneration in which case the body is in a state of declining health or disease. In addition to cardio-vascular health, muscle strength is important. If one does an exercise with a 10 pound weight, the muscles will recuperate and become even stronger to the point where one will eventually be able to do the same exercise with a 15 pound weight and so on. The body is continually in a state of flux becoming stronger or weaker.
If one exercises too much, the body will reach a state of exhaustion in which case you won't be able to recover and grow stronger. Rest time for recovery and regeneration is important. If one exercises not enough, the process of degeneration will overtake the process of regeneration and the body will become weaker and decline towards a state of ill health and disease. The human body's ability to recover and regenerate is amazing, but one has to take responsibility with a regular exercise program for this to happen. The body's natural arc is to incline towards greater health in the growing up process and then to decline downwards toward old age. The aging process can be averted to some extent by keeping the body in a constant upward spiral of regeneration and recovery.
This doesn't mean occasional exercise but a regular exercise program aimed at staying "in shape" over the course of a lifetime. There's a difference between being "in shape" and occasionally or casually exercising. If one is in shape cardiovascularly, one should be able to walk or run for 30 minutes to an hour, for example, or swim for an hour every day. If one exercises randomly and occasionally, one would not be able to do this. Being in shape means that one has built up gradually to that point where exercise becomes relatively effortless and one doesn't have to force one's self. If one stops exercising after having attained a state of "in shapeness," one will gradually decline towards a state of "out of shapeness" but the decline will be gradual. What is the optimal exercise program in order to attain "in shapeness" and stay in a state of being in shape, I will leave to others to decide. Certainly cardio-vascular health is important as well as muscle strangth. Therefore, running, walking, swimming and weight training are all important.
The aging process, in my opinion, is nothing more than a gradual decline in "in shapeness." The body will regenerate itself in response to injury or disease, but the body will also degenerate in response to a lack of exercise or use and become gradually weaker until some disease state is actually reached. Therefore, it is important to keep pushing against this gradual decline by challenging the body to regenerate itself so that the processes of regeneration outpace the processes of degeneration. At some point a state of homeostasis at which these two processes are in balance will actually occur, but it takes some effort. One must exert some effort over the course of a lifetime and not just a few years or a few months here and there. That's why athletes who stop training after their careers are finished can end up as unhealthy as those without any athletic ability and why people that don't possess any athletic ability but who exercise regularly can end up better off in terms of health than great athletes.
The problem is that most people want to live as effort free as possible. They don't want to exert themselves. If they have a problem physically or health wise, they want to take a pill or a drug to solve it. Their goal is to do as little work as possible except what they absolutely have to do. Others are simply caught up in the daily grind to the extent that they don't have the leisure time for exercise. With the need for physical exertion long gone because of labor saving devices, the processes of regeneration and degeneration have gotten completely out of whack with degeneration outpacing regeneration. The result is obesity, degenerative diseases and a sick society with mental health deteriorating along with physical health. That's why in Europe where people bicycle, walk and hike to a much greater extent than in the US, they have a much healthier society and much lower health care costs.
When human beings were hunter gatherers or even in early stages of agriculture, they had to exert themselves before they could eat. Food contributed to the regenerative process. But when one eats and doesn't exert an effort in order to eat, the result is obesity and degeneration. One is most healthy when in a state of mild hunger. That is when the body makes the best use of food. When one is satiated to begin with, food and especially food with a high fat, sugar and salt content only contributes to the degenerative process, not the regenerative one. Undereating is important in order to maintain a state of optimum health, and one should eat healthy, not overly processed or fast, foods. This simplifies the body's waste disposal jobs which a lot of the body's organs are dedicated to.
Modern life contributes to ill health to the extent that it is sedentary. If one sits at a desk in an office all day, degeneration is exceeding regeneration. Exercising after work can reverse this process to some extent, but commuting, office work and TV watching, all sedentary activities, can do more harm to the body than working in the field picking fruit, for example. Ironically, the more prestigious the profession, the more likely it is that it will contribute to poor health, and the less prestigious the profession, the more physically active one is, the more it will contribute to good health.
The same regenerative and degenerative processes also pertain to mental activities, and it is good to exercise the brain as well as the body. However, I think in general more people die as a result of a lack of physical exercise than die as a result of a lack of mental exercise. Your body is your friend. You should take as good care of it as you take care of your car and let its natural proclivity for regeneration keep you in a state of constant good health. Unfortunately, the bad news is that this takes a constant effort on your part. And needless to say, when regeneration exceeds degeneration, the cost of health care and prescription drugs is minimal. In fact the drug companies would probably go out of business.
